Possible Paper Articles

gladwell.com | Bad Stereotyping
race & gender = insufficient info

Blackburn Defends Philosophy
it beats being employed

Singer: How Much Should We Give?
just try to think up a more important topic

The Dark Art of Interrogation
Bowden sez torture is necessary

Can Foreign Aid Work?
didn't expect Kristof to bring up Darfur

NYT Editorial: The White House's Real Agenda
sunday editorials mean Big Picture time

Against Free Speech
but it's free, so it must be good

Is Wal-Mart Good for the Working Class?
Furman: walmart helps poor consumers more than it hurts poor workers. Ehrenreich: I call bs

What pro-lifers miss in the stem-cell debate
love embryos? then hate fertility clinics

Is Worrying About the Ethics of Your Diet Elitist?
since you asked, no

Abstinence campaign hits dead end on HPV

WSJ: White House vs. NYT on bank surveillance
on Keller's "leap of faith" (see below)

Keller's Letter on NYT's Banking Records Report

Is Selling Organs Repugnant?
freakonomicists for a free-market for organs

Should I Become a Professional Philosopher?
hell 2 da naw

Fallacies, Fallacies, Everywhere

My best friend the inter-net has some nice examples of the fallacy of equivocation. Here are two good ones:

All jackasses have long ears.

Karl is a jackass.

Therefore, Karl has long ears.

Margarine is better than nothing.

Nothing is better than butter.

Therefore margarine is better than butter.

Also, here's one of the best mashups out there:

(December 4th, from DJ Danger Mouse's Grey Album)
And finally, speaking of non sequiturs, here's a cute cat picture:

Wait, we weren't just speaking of non sequit--Oh. I see what you did there.

Clever.

Homework #2

Homework #2 is due at the beginning of class on Friday, October 19th. It is worth 2% of your overall grade. Here are the assigned problems to do from the textbook:

pages 86-88: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18

Git to gittin!

(Click on the comic to enlarge)

Paper #1

Due Date: Wednesday, October 24th, 2007

Worth: 5% of final grade

Length/Format: Papers must be typed, and must be between 300-600 words long. Provide a word count on the first page of the paper. (Most programs like Microsoft Word & WordPerfect have automatic word counts.)

Assignment:

1) Pick an article from a newspaper, magazine, or journal in which an author presents an argument for a particular position. I’ll be putting up some links to potential articles at the course blog. You are also free to choose any article on any topic you want, but you must show Sean your article by Friday, October 19th for approval. The main requirement is that the article presents an argument. One place to look for such articles is the Opinion page of a newspaper. Here’s a short list of some other good sources:

• The New Yorker
• Slate
• New York Review of Books
• London Review of Books
• Times Literary Supplement
• Boston Review
• Atlantic Monthly
• The New Republic
• The Weekly Standard
• The Nation
• Reason
• Dissent
• First Things
• Mother Jones
• National Journal
• The New Criterion

(for even more sources, check out the left-hand column of Arts & Letters Daily)

2) In the essay, first explain the article’s argument in your own words. What is the position that the author is arguing for? What are the reasons the author offers as evidence for her or his conclusion? What type of argument does the author provide? In other words, provide a detailed synopsis of the argument.

3) In the essay, then evaluate the article’s argument. Overall, is this a good or a bad argument? Why or why not? Check each premise: is each premise true? Or is it false? Questionable? (Do research if you have to in order to determine whether the author’s claims are true.) Then check the structure of the argument. Do the premises provide enough rational support for the conclusion? If you are criticizing the article’s argument, be sure to consider potential responses that the author might offer, and explain why these responses don’t work. If you are defending the article’s argument, be sure to consider and respond to possible objections.

4) Attach a copy of the article to your paper when you hand it in.

Begging the Dinosaur

Here is a comic and a video about the fallacy of of begging the question. The first is one of Ryan North's Dinosaur Comics on the fallacy. (Click on the comic to enlarge it)

And here's the video for Mims's logically delicious song "This is Why I'm Hot":

An Expert for Every Cause

Here's that article on the 9/11 conspiracy physicist that we talked about in class:
When Experts Disagree: 9/11 Conspiracy Theories
Below is a quote of the relevant section on the lone-wolf semi-expert (physicist) versus the overwhelming consensus of more relevant experts (structural engineers):

While there are a handful of Web sites that seek to debunk the claims of Mr. Jones and others in the movement, most mainstream scientists, in fact, have not seen fit to engage them.

"There's nothing to debunk," says Zdenek P. Bazant, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northwestern University and the author of the first peer-reviewed paper on the World Trade Center collapses.

"It's a non-issue," says Sivaraj Shyam-Sunder, a lead investigator for the National Institute of Standards and Technology's study of the collapses.

Ross B. Corotis, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder and a member of the editorial board at the journal Structural Safety, says that most engineers are pretty settled on what happened at the World Trade Center. "There's not really disagreement as to what happened for 99 percent of the details," he says.

Also, here's an interesting article on instances when we shouldn't trust an expert's opinion.

The Seven Warning Signs of Bogus Science

Just for Chris

The Wussy/Bad-Ass Criterion for Philosophical Views

Band Names, Part Deux

For some strange reason, we received a bunch of band name suggestions yesterday. I say we start voting for the ones we like. Here they are, along with my two cents on each one:

• Logical By Design (suggested by Jim) sounds like a company that does stuff I don't understand. "Logical By Design is an innovative information technology company dedicated to providing custom management solutions in an ever-changing business climate."
• Daffyductive (suggested by Jim) is pretty weak. I was disappointed with that pun as soon as I wrote it.
• Rojikku Rokkuzu (suggested by Abi) has a poetic ring to it. Maybe we'll play Japanese synth pop?
• Unsound Logic (suggested by Abi) is almost contradictory. I like the idea of a contradiction as a band name.
• The Narcoleptic Water Buffalo (suggested by Sue) would be a cool name for a Buffalo Springfield tribute band.

Go to the comments to vote for your favorite or suggest your own band names.

The Source of Satan's Fingers

Some of you did some quality googling to discover that "Satan's Fingers" and "The Hospital Bombers" are band names referenced in a Mountain Goats song called "The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton." Here's the song:

BONUS! Here is a video of the Mountain Goats performing the song in Philly two weeks ago:


I was so totally at this concert. Attentive listeners will notice that he changes the name of one of the bands in this video.